The budget acknowledges that California’s surplus will likely be short lived as they came from Proposition 30 tax revenue and “a windfall from volatile capital gains.”

Outstanding budgetary borrowing plunged from $34.7 billion in 2011 to under $25 billion in 2013. The budget proposal aims to cut that but more than $11 billion, and remove it completely by 2017-18.

In that vein, the proposal calls for eliminating school payment deferrals, paying off economic recovery bonds and making early loan payments.

Brown acknowledges the state’s long-term liabilities in terms of pensions, benefits, and infrastructure debt and deferred maintenance. He says while they will take years to pay off, it’s important to tackle them now with $4.2 billion in payments this year.